Amazon Coins

Amazon launched their coins in 2013, the concept is still going strong.

New Money! Have you bought yours yet? Buying coins to get discounts on apps and games through the Android App store. An interesting marketing concept. Buying a discount seems a bit strange.

Random House In House eBooks

2013 saw the advent of Unlike the Simon & Schuster digitals for indie authors through ASI. It's branch, Archway Publishing, is be run by Author Solutions Inc. Shelf Awareness says:

"Author Solutions will offer editorial, design, distribution and marketing services to self-published authors. Archway Publishing titles will be listed on Edelweiss, and Archway will offer a speakers' bureau, video and book trailer production and distribution services and a 'concierge service,' allowing authors to work with a publishing guide who will coordinate each step of the book production process. Some of its services are among the priciest for self-publishing authors, ranging

Do S&S authors have to pay for the eBooks? Unsure.

Another publisher in eBook production is Random House Publishing Group (RHPG). They offers digital-only imprints through their own staff and editors. The four RHPG imprints cover major genres, Romance (Loveswept), Science Fiction/Fantasy (Hydra), Mystery (Alibi) and a genre they call New Adult (Flirt).

RHPG writes:

Every book will be assigned to an accomplished Random House editor and a dedicated publicist. They will also have the invaluable support of Random House’s experienced marketing and digital sales teams, who know how to reach out to and expand each book’s dedicated readership.

Submissions go through the regular RHPG channels, and their site doesn't indicate any monetary outlay from the author. It's a regular submission route, however RHPG "does not accept unsolicited submissions, proposals, manuscripts, illustrations, artwork, or submission queries at this time. This includes submission of work previously published elsewhere." They only consider works that come through agents.

eBook Subscription Services

Several articles are telling about the eBook subscription services with DBW suggesting it's the wave of the future:  "6. More publishers will endorse the subscription eBook model by doing business with Oyster, Scribd and other similar services."

A few questions arise with these subscription venues, most importantly, are they legal. Michael Capobianco addresses this in his Writer Beware blog post.

The WWW has so many places eBooks can be purchased or downloaded for free, it's becoming a real bugaboo for authors to know where their titles are listed. I'm certain these subscription services will add to the confusion.

Publishng Mergers & DNA Books

1. Lots of (bad?) news and possibly more monopolies. Shelf Awareness (SA) reported on the consolidation of American publishers into one mega company. This on the heels of approval of recent mergers by many international governments and the U.S.

2. The same SA issue had an article about DNA-books. Huh? Yes. Books to be injected into the system...no need to read. Weird Science, but now an actuality. Don't dash off to get injected. It's still a speculative and new science, but think of the possibilities?

More information on this can be found in this MIT article.

Publishers: Did You Know?

It's a well-known fact that most of the major publishing houses have consolidated and merged and rearranged themselves many times over. This has affected magazines as well as book publishers; many of the controlling holding companies are not in the U.S.

Simon & Schuster, is an exception. Founded in New York City in 1924, S&S is currently owned by CBS. Still headquartered in NYC, it is a bastion of fiction and nonfiction, producing more than 1000 titles a year from 35 different imprints, including Pocket Books, Scribner, Atria, Fireside, Touchstone, and Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Baen Books is a more recent stalwart of American publishing. It was founded in 1983 when a huge reorganization of Simon & Schuster was underway. S&S approached Jim Baen with an offer for him to head up the S&S science fiction line (Pocket Books division). Baen, however, had different plans. He obtained financial backing from some friends and proposed to start a new company named Baen Books. The deal was done and, at the beginning, Simon & Schuster handled the distribution.

Unfortunately, many of the book publishers we have taken for granted as being American-owned and run no longer hold that distinction.

• Houghton Mifflin Company, founded in Boston in 1832, is now HMH (Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt), with the company having purchased Harcourt (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) in 2007. Several mergers and buyouts have ensued and HMH is now owned by Education Media and Publishing Group (EMPG), an international holding company registered in the Cayman Island. HMH is a leader in the educational publications marketplace. NOTE: Although primaries in EMPG are from Ireland, one of the major investors is Guggenheim Partners, a U.S. investment corporation.
• Alfred A Knopf, Inc founded in 1915, was purchased by Random House in 1960. Random House also bought Doubleday, and now there's a KnopfDoubleday company under the RH umbrella. It's a publishing consortium of its own, with a half dozen or so imprints. Random House, Inc. has been owned since 1998 by the German mega-media company, Bertelsmann.
• The Free Press was founded in 1947, became an imprint of Simon & Schuster, was sold in 1960 and merged into the Macmillan Publishing Company. Macmillian, founded in London, opened its first U.S. offices in 1969. It is now part of the large German holding company, Georg von Holtzbrinck. MacMillan's American publishers include Farrar Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt & Company, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Picador, Roaring Brook Press, St. Martin’s Press, Tor Books, and others.

The publisher umbrellas have a wide span, with most of the imprints belonging to three or four houses. Along with S&S, Random House, Harper-Collins, and Penguin Group (USA) produce the majority of books we see on commercial bookshelves across the country. Former independent companies have become imprints: Farrar Straus, Henry Holt, Little Brown; and some have vanished (Fawcett, Carol Graf, Arbor).

But there are plenty of small and Indie publishers. Check out the Wikipedia page to see the more than 500 companies that are competing with the big guys.